I was recently assigned on a particle recipe that was going to be used by several people on several shots. After some thinking on how I was going to approach the idea, I realized that I needed a few features missing in XSI. In fact, I”ve been wanting those features many times in the past. I decided to take the time to write some scripted events, even though I was on a tight deadline. It turned out it was easier than I thought.

When I wrote the first article, I hadn’t planned on writing a sequel, but a couple of people on XSIBase asked me to look into how I could extend the Soft IK system to work with a stretchy bone chain. Initially, figuring out how this could work seems like a pretty tricky problem. The bone [...]

When an IK chain extends towards its full length, it will tend to snap into it’s final position. To prevent this from happening, it is possible to give the appearance that the IK chain is stiffening as it extends towards it’s full length. This technique isn’t new and similar functionality is already implemented in Cinema [...]